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South Buffalo Catholic School’s three elementary schools will be merged into a single facility next September, parents, faculty and staff were told at a meeting Thursday in Bishop Timon-St. Jude High School.

Ambrose Catholic Academy on Okell Street and Trinity Catholic Academy on Hayden Street will be closed, and all students from prekindergarten to eighth grade will go to Notre Dame Academy, 1125 Abbott Road.

“They looked at all three buildings, and Notre Dame made the most sense,” Kevin A. Keenan, spokesman for the Diocese of Buffalo, told The Buffalo News on Thursday night. “It’s the newest of the three buildings.”

Keenan noted that the consolidation comes in response to declining enrollment.

“If you look at enrollment in South Buffalo,” he said, “10 years ago it was 2,063. That number today is 601.”

He said that Notre Dame presently has 344 students, while Ambrose has 139 and Trinity has 127.

“This is the right time to make this move,” Sister Joan Sherry, chairwoman of the South Buffalo Central School Board of Education, said Thursday.

“Our buildings are under capacity, and the cost of maintaining three buildings is very high. By moving all of the students to the Notre Dame campus, we will be able to concentrate more of our resources on educating our students.”

Notre Dame Academy was created in 2006, when St. Martin of Tours, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure schools were consolidated in the St. Martin of Tours building.